While increasing the density of the powdery detergent composition has imparted great advantages in the improvement in the transportation efficiency and the convenience in the users, there is an increasing concerning on the dissolubility by compression of the detergent granules.
While since the mid 1990's, the washing machines have the tendency of having large volume capacity and water conservation by the demands of users, and short-period washing mode or gentle stirring mode meeting the demands of reduction in clothes damaging has been set. However, in either of the modes, the amount of work (i.e. mechanical power×time) of the washing machine tends to be lowered. As a result, there arise crucial problems that the dissolubility of the detergent granules is drastically lowered, so that the detergency becomes poor and that the insoluble remnants deposit on clothes.
On the other hand, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Hei 7-509267 discloses a detergent composition comprising a base powder comprising granules having a size of less than 150 μm in an amount of less than 10% by weight, and granules having a size exceeding 1700 μm in an amount of less than 10% by weight; and filler granules made of sodium citrate, sodium hydrogencarbonate, or the like. However, the detergent composition does not sufficiently solve the problems relating to the dissolubility and the dispersibility of the detergent composition in a case where the amount of work of the washing machine is low.
An object of the present invention is to provide a high-density detergent composition which is excellent in the detergency even when the amount of work of the washing machine is low, excellent in the dissolubility of the granules and the dispersibility, and excellent also in the hand-washing dissolubility. The above object and other objects of the present invention will be apparent from the following description.